In response to CIR’s recently filed suit on behalf of artist Timothy Desmond, the state of California reversed course and agreed to let Desmond display his civil war painting at the 2016 Big Fresno Fair, which opens on October 5th. State officials previously barred Desmond from displaying his work because it contained a historically accurate depiction of the Confederate Battle Flag. Officials contended a 2014 state law barred display of ...

On September 13th, CIR filed suit against the state of New York on behalf of New York civil servant Salvatore Davi. Davi, who worked as an Administrative Law Judge in New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, was suspended and demoted from his position because he expressed his political views on his Facebook account. His superiors alleged his expression of political views constituted professional misconduct.

On July 22nd, the Center for Individual Rights filed an amicus brief before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Westchester County, New York. The County Executive, Robert Astorino, is engaged in an ongoing political dispute with the Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which Astorino has publicly accused of seeking to take over local zoning in Westchester County and across the country. After a ...

On June 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition from nine California public school teachers to rehear their First Amendment challenge to mandatory union fees. The plaintiffs petitioned the Court to rehear their case after a 4-4 decision was issued in the wake of Justice Scalia’s death. When the split decision was issued, it was not accompanied by an opinion on the merits of the argument. All that was ...

CIR is assisting the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in its fight against the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands and his effort to issue a subpoena on CEI demanding that it produce a decade’s worth of communications, statements, and documents related to CEI’s work on climate change from 1997-2007. After several rounds of letters and motions that imposed significant costs on CEI, the AG withdrew his subpoena. CIR filed an amicus brief in ...

In what many Supreme Court experts consider a surprise opinion, the Supreme Court voted to uphold the system of racial preferences used for admission at the University of Texas, Austin. In a confusing holding that significantly departs from his original holding in Fisher I, Justice Kennedy authored an opinion that largely defers to Universities and minimizes the role of the Courts. In doing so, the Court’s opinion will embolden Universities ...

In a significant victory for CIR client “Zujua” — an anonymous Wikepedia editor who was sued for defamation for making edits to a Wikipedia entry — the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed trial judge Maurice Ross’s earlier ruling denying Zujua attorney’s fees.

Judge Ross had ruled that the D.C. anti-SLAPP statute only allows an award of attorney’s fees for what Ross termed “classic” SLAPP lawsuits, which he ...

A Civil War painting that shows a soldier carrying a Confederate flag into battle will be displayed at the Big Fresno Fair, averting a First Amendment showdown this week in U.S. District Court in Fresno…

It isn’t unusual for presidential candidates to discuss the actions of the Supreme Court on the campaign trail — hailing some precedents and promising to overturn others. However, in most election years, the campaign rhetoric is just that: empty rhetoric.

A brewing California legislative fight over school discipline highlights the First Amendment violations stemming from mandatory union fees for teachers. At issue is the California Teacher’s Association’s use of member dues and mandatory agency fees from non-members to lobby for school discipline legislation pushed by the Obama administration. Many California teachers oppose the legislation yet are forced to financially support the union’s lobbying for it.

You may have seen something about this already: a California state legislator’s mother was offended when she saw novelty Confederate money bearing the Confederate flag in the gift shop at the State Capitol. Naturally her son proposed a new law, now in effect, banning the State of California from displaying or selling the Confederate Flag or items bearing its image.

The “butterfly effect,” as used in chaos theory, is the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil may help cause a tornado in Kansas. In law and politics, the
butterfly effect is both more prosaic and more perverse. It shows us that a state legislator’s mother becoming annoyed in a gift shop in Sacramento can prevent a civil war buff from displaying his painting at the art show at …

A Fresno man created a Civil War painting and exhibited it at his county fair this year, but the painting prompted fair officials to contact the office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris because of concerns about it containing a Confederate flag.

California Government Code § 8195 provides that “The State of California may not sell or display the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, also referred to as the Stars and Bars, or any similar image, or tangible personal property, inscribed with such an image unless the image appears in a book, digital medium, or state museum that serves an educational or historical purpose.” Read narrowly, this would be constitutional: The California …